I teach at Lehigh University in eastern Pennsylvania. I work on British colonialism, modernism, postcolonial/global literature, and the digital humanities.

Monday, March 11, 2013

An Open Letter to Narendra Modi

[Cross-posted from 3 Quarks Daily. The following essay is intended as a satire.]

Dear Chief Minister Modi,

You don’t know me, but I’ll spare you a Google search: I am
one of your loyal subjects! I’m a proud Indian --technically Indian American,
but never mind that. I may have been born in America but at heart I am a true
Indian.

Respected Chachaji Modi, I heard the story about how you got
invited to speak at a conference called the Indian Economic Forum at the
Wharton School of Business, only to have the invitation get cancelled this week
because of Marxist Professors who were acting as the Sepoys for the Whites (as
Mr. Rajiv Malhotra has
written in a Tweet). Quite shocking!
Disrespectful behavior!

Chachaji, I have heard many of our friends, referred to by
pseudosecularists and their ilk as “Internet Hindus,” complaining about this
incident as a problem of freedom of speech. The pseudosecularists, for their
part, say we have to remember the past. But like you I am a man of the future!
I think it is time to put the past behind us. We have to think of India’s
development, not the immediate past!

However, there are a couple of things bothering me about the
recent past that I was hoping you could explain to me. I have been wondering
about some things people say you did a few years ago. The word “riot” is so
dull, it doesn’t really explain what happened does it?

Anyway, no one is saying you caused the riots – or whatever
they were – but… There is some talk, Chacha,
that you told your Bajrangi goonda acquaintances they could do whatever they
wanted for three days. Is that true? Some hack journalist at Tehelka taped a bunch of thug types
saying things like that in 2007. I never heard you say it didn’t happen, or
explain why all these guys would say this when they thought they were speaking
in confidence, among friends.

Also is it true what they say about your refusal to send
help to Ehsan Jafri? That you said something about him “firing” at the mob to
Sanjiv Bhatt? The number of people who were killed at the Gulburg Society alone
makes me a little hairaan – 179
people, was it? I wonder why you didn’t respond to his direct call to you, or
even to L.K. Advani who called you from Delhi specifically to find out what you
were doing to protect him?

Chachoo, do you ever feel just a little bit bad about what
happened to those 179 people, or the other 800 who were killed in those riots
(or whatever they were)? Do you ever lose sleep about this happening in Our New
India? I do, which is strange, because I didn’t even have anything to do with
it.

I know, I know, Jafri was a Muslim and all. But he was also
a Member of Parliament! One of the “good” ones! Loyal, maybe even... (And I say
this as a Sikh who only wanted a Sikh nation to secede from India for a little
while… when I was about 12 years old. I didn’t like the way my family was
threatened in 1984.)

Oh right, 1984! Modi-saab, I knew you would want to talk
about that somehow. Yes, some Congress bad guys were behind it, and only a
couple of the thugs were ever tried for it (go figure: some of those guys
remained in elected office for years and years – kind of like you though, isn’t
it?). Most of the people who organized the mobs in 1984 got off scot-free! What
is wrong with the Indian judiciary? And don’t get me started on that thug Rajiv
Gandhi! (Really, don’t. He was bad on so many levels, it would get quite dull
to read.) It still bugs me, but you see, Uncleji, I can’t help but think
talking about it is a bit of a distraction from the question of what you did not 30 years ago but 11 years
ago.

Another thing that bugs me is this whole thing about Haren
Pandya. Did you or didn’t you have anything to do with him getting
assassinated? He was one of your guys, a BJP/RSS guy to the core. I’ve always
wondered how he managed to get killed just around the time he decided to
testify about the things that happened in February of 2002.

I know, Chachoo, your Indian American nephew sure seems to
have a lot of questions! But the thing is, you have tried very hard not to
answer these types of questions for the past few years. I know what it is—you
want everyone to forget. You are a man of the future! But you see, the longer
you go on without answering these questions, the more they build up. Like a
dam.

By the way, I like development! I like Tata Nano and Ipod
Nano, both. I like big dams and little dams too. I am not one of those Marxist
Gandhian ban-Monsanto-farmer-suicide types. I say forget Gandhi and Gandhis! I
know you agree with me on this.

And I like freedom of speech! And I am very angry that the
wicked pseudosecular sepoy Marxists at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton
School of Business revoked their invitation to you to speak by teleconference.

And just one more thing. All of your friends say you are
“incorruptible,” which means a lot these days in India, truly the country home
to the maximum amount of dirty money. But I wonder why you have resisted
efforts to open an accountability and anti-corruption office in the State of
Gujarat? Are you worried that all of your famous business deals with
multinational corporations who have opened shiny new offices in your state in
the past 10 years may not have always been entirely straight? Chachoo, please
tell me – was there any black money
involved in the Gujarat “miracle”?

So those are my questions, Chachaji. If you would be so kind
as to answer them publicly I would strongly consider telling those pseudosecularist
hypocrites at the University of Pennsylvania to shove it. They say you should
go to jail. Also shocking, and absurd since you have been duly elected by the
people of Gujarat three times and cleared by the Indian judiciary, which is
always right! Still, all I am seeking are some answers to these few questions, so
my heart, the heart of a true Indian, will beat at peace.

3 comments:

Narendra Modi aka Chachu
said...

My dear nephew, being born in USA it is good that you are so much attracted to me. As a ignorant soul like many living in India outside Gujarat, I am taking time to reply you as ticket to Gujarat will be costly for you.

Riots happened in Gujarat due to killings of 59 karsevaks by Muslim mob. Atmosphere was already boiled up by Gujarati media months before by reporting murders, rapes and anti social activities from goons of Muslim community and there always used to be riots every month with couple of people killed in Ahmedabad alone. That killing and burning of Karsevaks did create anger amongst Hindus and they indulge in riots on large scale. Police was not enough and even if all 25 chief ministers of India were given control of individual district, situation couldn't have been handled before. That said, police did best whatever it could do, police firing killed almost 200 people. Not much riot happened in most notorious places and it happened mostly in places where there were no riots before and police couldn't anticipate.

Fortunately situation has become remarkably calm after 2002. There has been no riots unlike years upto 2002. Muslims are happy and prospering and they know reality. They have moved ahead and are voting me instead of Congress and others.

It always require knowledge of history, ground situation, and actual incidents knowledge which only people of Gujarat were witness to. But due to media and others propaganda many outside Gujarat like you have misconceived ideas of what happened in 2002. There are many convictions including few of people you referred to in your Tehelka (check reality and history of Tehelka as Congress agency). Multiple agencies including SIT under supervision of supreme court have done thorough investigation and not found your chachoo culprit of anything not even omission.

So you should be happy bhatija and should tell ignorants like you in USA true reality (request to visit Gujarat and ask people on ground) and serve nation.

I understand you anger. But I could not understand why you hand-picked few cases about the corruption and riots as usual the media do. Every action has opposite reaction- true? What was the action that triggered the "Riot"? Never discussed about that. Answer: The same action that forced Obama' administrator to send troops to kill people-both armed and unarmed. He could have taken the case to Big Brother Union(UN). Logically, the president Obama should be treated as the greatest terrorist on the other side of the world.

When 100 Hindus charred to death, did the central government punish the culprit? 1984 riot did the government take action?

It is the EAST. Justice system is corrupt. Sometimes, "The East" believes in "Justice" delivered on the street.

Links, Selected Posts

Amardeep Singh, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh UniversityOn Twitter

My book, Diaspora Vérité: The Films of Mira Nair, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2018, is now available on Amazon.

I have been working on several digital projects in Scalar. All are in progress as of January 2019.
One is digital archive I am calling "The Kiplings and India." Working with a team of graduate research assistants, we have been building the site in Scalar here. Feedback welcome; it's a work in progress.

I have also been working on a Digital Collection called "Claude McKay's Early Poetry (1912-1922)" This project began as a collaborative class project called "Harlem Echoes," a digital edition of Claude McKay's "Harlem Shadows." The new version of the project is much-expanded, including McKay's early Jamaican poetry as well as his uncollected political poetry from magazines like The Liberator and Workers Dreadnought.

I also put together a digital edition of Jean Toomer's Cane, taking advantage of the fact that that work is now in the public domain. That project can be found here.